A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

  I prickled up. “They knew.” I concentrated on the ancient text struggling not to openly confront him. “Why must people always assume we moderns knew more than any of the previous cultures? It simply isn’t true, evidence proves otherwise.”

  I bit my lip, suppressing the impulse to argue the point further. I wanted to maintain the delicate connection I felt with him, so I turned the page. Shoulder to shoulder we leaned over the books. Heads together, we hypothesized as to what other ingredients the ancients might have described as red salt.

  And all the while, my skin tingled under the gentle breeze of our companionability. I doubt any lover’s poem would have teased my ears more sweetly than our discussion of iron oxides and magnesium.

  At length, I exclaimed, “That’s it! We’ll use ammonium to emulsify ferrous sulfate. That must be the answer.” I rushed to locate the ingredients.

  “Mmm. Perhaps.” He still studied the text. “Although I’m concerned about what will happen when we apply heat.”

  “Ever the skeptic, aren’t you. It’s worth a try.”

  He straightened. “Not skeptical. Cautious.”

  “Light the burner,” I ordered, hunting through the element drawers. “Ah, here it is.”

  I measured out the ingredients and set the mixture atop the stand. The burner worked beautifully, exactly like a chafing dish but with a more intense flame. While Sebastian stirred, I went through the remainder of Miss Stranje’s chemist’s chest, pulling out each little drawer, searching the contents of every box for any element that might be construed as red salt.

  A few moments later, I fanned my hand in front of my nose to drive away the stench from our mixture. It smelled worse than rotten eggs. Sebastian coughed. I felt sorry for him standing over the pot stirring.

  “Ghastly smell.” I held my nose and squeezed past him to open the window, but stopped when he coughed again. This time his shoulders hunched and he barked so spasmodically I feared he might lose the contents of his stomach. I patted him between the shoulder blades, and commenced coughing quite violently myself.

  White acrid smoke puffed up from the bubbling mixture, stinging my nostrils. A glance at the fizzling brew and I realized my mistake. “They’re reacting!”

  Sebastian reached through the suffocating smoke and shut off the flame. I covered my mouth with the collar of my dress and slammed a lid over the pot, and yet smoke continued to pour out around the edges. I rushed to the window, but the rusted latch wouldn’t budge. Sebastian tried the next window, only to be overtaken by another coughing fit. Pounding and thumping, I yanked on the handle, and finally got the stubborn latch to give way. But it stuck and I only managed to pry it open a few inches.

  By that time, Sebastian had turned an alarming shade of gray. Desperation twisted his features. Any second he would collapse. I caught his arm over my shoulder and we stumbled toward the door. Just as we rounded the worktable all of his weight fell on me. I tipped, and we slid to the floor. Sebastian would die if I didn’t get him to fresh air immediately.

  “Madame Cho,” I screamed. “Help!” But she was already out the door, gasping, and fanning away the fumes with the silk she’d been embroidering.

  I wriggled out from underneath him, grabbed him under the arms, and tugged with every ounce of strength I had. I pulled his limp body toward the door. Madame Cho shuffled back, holding the silk over her mouth, and took hold of his arm. Together we dragged him into the hall.

  “Shut the door,” I shouted, not wanting the fumes to asphyxiate the entire population of the school. I checked Sebastian for signs of life. Faint breath sounds came from his mouth, and his chest expanded slightly. He was alive.

  Barely.

  Think, I ordered myself. The fumes had been acidic. How could we counteract it in his system? I remembered a note in Lavoisier’s book.

  “Milk,” I said, grasping Madame Cho’s arm. “Quickly! We need a pitcher of milk and two eggs. No. Three egg whites.” Her face screwed up, as if she thought I’d lost my mind. “To neutralize the acid. Mix the whites in milk and we’ll make him drink it. Hurry!”

  Instead of arguing, she vanished down the hall with surprising speed. I dragged Sebastian farther from the stillroom, farther from the fumes seeping under the door, farther from the poison that was killing him. If I could haul him all the way out into the garden, the fresh air might help. I tugged and pulled, coughing with every step. At last, I yanked open the side door. Steps. Too many steps for me to drag him safely down without giving him a concussion. A wracking cough overwhelmed me. Wheezing, I sank against the doorpost and propped his head on my lap.

  Without thinking I slid my fingers into his black hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. My freckled hands looked so shabby against his raven black hair and smooth white skin. Too white. I jerked my hand away.

  No longer gray, Sebastian looked like a stone angel in the graveyard, washed bone white in the sun. Pale and unearthly. All wrong. Where was his devilish sneer? His teasing grin? The cold gone-ness of his features made me shiver.

  “Come back,” I whispered, and fell to coughing momentarily. I’m not the sort of girl who falls apart in a crisis. Nor do I blubber pointlessly. Not me. The moisture in my eyes was merely a reaction to the acrid fumes. That’s all.

  “Breathe,” I ordered, and fanned fresh healing air toward him. “Breathe.” I gave his shoulders a shake. “You mustn’t die. You can’t. I will not permit it.”

  As if he heard me, Sebastian lurched up. Immediately, he commenced a brutal coughing spasm. I braced his shoulders. At the end of it, he slumped into my lap breathing in loud gasps. “Stay calm,” I said, sounding very authoritarian even to my own ears. “Try to breathe evenly.”

  I thought he said, “Ha.” Or it could’ve been “Huh?” No, in retrospect, I’m fairly certain he uttered a derisive, “Ha.”

  “Conserve your strength,” I urged. “Don’t talk. Just breathe.”

  His impudent smirk returned. He ignored me. “You … are…”

  “Hush,” I cautioned. “No need to thank me.”

  His eyes widened.

  “After all,” I said. “You caught me when I fell from the spy hole, and yesterday you carried me up from the rocks.” I coughed briefly. “Turnabout is only fair.”

  Sebastian’s pupils rolled upward. I thought he might lose consciousness again, so I patted his cheeks. “Take a deep breath. Stay awake.”

  He shook his head and inhaled deeply, exactly as I’d instructed. Only it brought on more coughing. “You are”—cough—“the most”—cough—“vexing”—he wheezed—“dangerous”—cough—“girl”—cough—“I’ve ever—” cough, cough, gasp.

  He had the audacity to flop back against my lap as if I was his personal feather pillow. Fine. I certainly didn’t want to hear the rest of his rude comments anyway. The mocking glint in his eyes gave me a nearly uncontrollable urge to shove him down the steps.

  Fortunately for him, at that very moment Captain Grey and Miss Stranje came running down the hall toward us, followed by Madame Cho and a footman carrying a sloshing pitcher of milk. I felt relieved that they did not arrive pelting me with angry shouts of “Murderer!”

  Captain Grey knelt beside me and braced Sebastian into a more upright position. He asked simply, “What happened?”

  “She—”

  “Fumes,” I interrupted, before Sebastian could publicly condemn me. “The chemicals we mixed reacted and formed a poisonous gas.”

  Captain Grey nodded as the footman arrived with the pitcher and a glass.

  “Egg whites?” I asked as the fellow poured.

  “Yes, miss. Already in the milk.”

  “Good.” I indicated the glass should go to Sebastian. “Drink this. It will help neutralize the effects of the acidic fumes.”

  Sebastian reached for it, but his hands shook. Captain Grey guided the milk to his protégé’s lips. After gulping most of the contents, Sebastian exhaled loudly and once more began to accuse me. “She—”
He coughed.

  I slumped and gave up trying to silence him. No sense prolonging the inevitable. My days of experimenting were at an end. Sooner or later the captain and Miss Stranje were bound to hear about my colossal blunder.

  Stupid, stoopid, impulsiveness. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. If only I had thought it through more carefully before flinging ingredients into the pot. Sebastian had warned me. It was like the fire all over again. I’d leaped before thinking. I could hear my father scolding me. Reckless little fool.

  Miss Stranje fixed her attention on Sebastian. Concern bleached out her sharp features. I’d nearly killed her benefactor’s nephew. I expected her to horsewhip me soundly or lock me in the mummy case. At the very least, she would send me home with a note scrawled across my forehead—hopeless. What did it matter? I couldn’t feel any more disgraced than I already did.

  I edged up against the doorpost, so I might stand and face my accusers. It occurred to me I could run away. It didn’t matter that I had nowhere to go. Running would free me from this wretched moment, from the aftermath of this whole bloody mess.

  I managed to push all the way to my feet. Had I been steadier, I might have taken off like a fox fleeing hounds. Except, I was dizzy.

  The garden wobbled and tipped at an unnatural angle. Light hurt my eyes, so I focused down the length of the cool dark hall. Still the earth did not hold as steady as it ought.

  “She—” Sebastian cleared his throat. “Saved my life.”

  I wondered for a minute if my hearing had become as unreliable as my sight.

  “Pulled me out,” he wheezed.

  Captain Grey turned to me and smiled solemnly. “Thank you,” he said. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  I didn’t deserve his gratitude. I shook my head, refusing his thanks. Another mistake, shaking my head made the entire world spin.

  “You’re not well.” Miss Stranje grabbed hold of my shoulder and eased me down beside Sebastian. She signaled the footman to refill the glass. “Drink some of this milk.”

  “I’m fine.” I pressed my hand against my eyes to stop the spinning. “I didn’t breathe in as much of the fumes as he did.”

  Sebastian pushed the glass at me. “Drink.”

  Had he really told them I saved his life? It wasn’t true. He had it right the first time, I’d nearly killed him. I was dangerous. First, the fire in my father’s stables. Now, this.

  I lifted the glass to drink, but a liberating blackness swallowed me up.

  Eight

  APPARITIONS

  I have no memory of how I got from the hallway to my bed. It seemed as if I floated up the stairs in a whirling darkness. I saw faces along the way. Hideous faces. Stern faces. Wild, mocking, laughing faces. Now that I am rational again, I believe they were merely the portraits hanging in the hallway, the faces of Miss Stranje’s disturbing ancestors.

  Like the three hags in Macbeth, these apparitions cackled and chanted at me. “Boil, boil, toil, and trouble…” They stirred a cauldron of bubbling red liquid. The pot hissed and spit burning prickly droplets onto my skin. A cloud of vapor encircled us. “Your fault. Not smart. Red hair. Red salt,” they chanted. “Worthless brain and freckled heart, silly little oak wart.”

  The witches twirled around me in dizzying circles, cackling. Again and again they sang that maddening ditty about my worthless brain and oak warts. One of them resembled Madame Cho, except her eye sockets were plugged with milky unseeing stones and she wore the black hood of an executioner. I turned to run and collided with the chopping block of a guillotine. The blade hovered above my head.

  “No! No!” I screamed, hiding my face from the steel edge plummeting toward me.

  “Wake up, child. Wake up.” Miss Stranje drew the covers away from my neck.

  No guillotine. No witches. No hags. Although Madame Cho stood next to the bed, arms crossed, silent, dark-eyed, wearing a judgmental frown. I could tell she blamed me for the poisonous fumes. And why shouldn’t she?

  As usual, I’d rushed into an inaccurate conclusion and my experimenting landed me in trouble. The hags were right—my brain was worthless. If only I’d been born a simpleton with brown hair, a good girl without freckles and absolutely no interest in ancient chemists. If only I could rip out my overactive curiosity and trade it in for an interest in embroidery, maybe then my mother’s friends would smile at me. Maybe then my mother would love me.

  “You’ve been asleep a very long time. You need fluids.” Miss Stranje pressed a glass of milk to my lips. “Drink.”

  I sipped obediently. “I didn’t intend—”

  “Hush.” She set the glass down with an irritated plunk.

  “Sebastian?” I rasped.

  She stiffened at my use of his familiar name. “Lord Wyatt,” she corrected. “He rested comfortably through the night, and is recovering.”

  “I didn’t mean to harm—”

  “Stop.” She inhaled deeply. “I know you didn’t intend to hurt him. Next time, think carefully before you act.”

  Madame Cho emitted a low grumble of agreement.

  “I did think.” My voice croaked like a rusty frog. “I was trying to make the ink.”

  “And did you?”

  “No.” I sank against the pillow. “I failed.”

  “You failed yesterday. Try again tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I’d been so certain she would punish me or send me home.

  “Yes,” she answered curtly. “Unless you’re suggesting there is no solution to the problem?”

  I was suggesting no such thing. I studied her, not sure how to answer, frustrated by the way she turned my words against me. “There is a solution. The Persians had a formula. So, did the Greeks. Pliny, the elder, refers to an invisible ink. I just don’t know if I can—”

  “You just don’t know?” She didn’t yell at me, but it felt as if she had. “Georgiana, this is not a child’s game.”

  No, it wasn’t a child’s game. It had never been a game. Oh, yes, it’s true, in the past I took childish risks, but my intent had always been deadly serious. I couldn’t fight Napoleon with a musket or a knife, but I had hoped to do this one thing—I hoped to make certain no one else lost their brother because a dispatch got intercepted by the enemy. I didn’t want anyone else’s world to grow as lightless and lonely as mine.

  I leaned up on my elbows and chewed my bottom lip. But everything had changed. Before, the ink had been only a plan, an idea, a hope. Now lives hung in the balance. Sebastian’s. The other diplomats. The leaders of Europe. I shuddered. My shoulders hunched. What if I failed again?

  She stared at me, scouring my soul. “Either you are up to this challenge, or you are not.” Her words came at me like eagle claws. “Which is it?” she asked in a menacingly soft voice.

  Which was it, indeed?

  I wanted to run away again, not from her, from myself, from the confusion pummeling my head. Some cowardly part of me wished I could forget about Pliny’s invisible ink forever. At the same time new ideas tumbled through my mind.

  Oak warts.

  Why had the old hags chanted about oak warts? Oak galls. What did they mean by it? I knew, of course, the hags were only a figment of my imagination. They didn’t mean anything. It had come from some far corner of my own mind. Oak galls, the round misshapen growths on oak branches, when ground to a fine powder, were used in making many types of ink.

  Was there a way I could turn ink invisible, and then use a gall-based developer to bring out the color? Seed pods of ideas took root and germinated in my mind. A new theory bloomed and treacherously whispered, what if …

  Eager to test the idea, I sat up straighter. My head felt heavy as an anvil. Two words hammered against it. What if.

  What if always came at a price.

  Those two words were the reason I had to continue my experiments. Those insidious words meant there would never be approving smiles aimed at me. What ifs insured there would be no good-daughter pats on my head from
my father. My mother would continue to dislike me. What ifs promised no ball gowns in my future. No suitors bestowing adoring looks on me, least of all Sebastian.

  It didn’t matter. I could not escape the what ifs any more than I could stop breathing or rip off my arm.

  “Yes.” I lifted my head and looked directly at her, straight through the foolish water blurring my vision. “I will find an answer.”

  “Good,” she said, only she didn’t sound pleased. She thrust a handkerchief at me. “Dry your eyes, Georgiana.” She shook her head and her mouth twisted in sympathy. “You are a rather stubborn case, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t understand her meaning. Madame Cho, on the other hand, was easy to understand. She chuckled—a dry unfriendly grunt. I guessed what that guttural sound meant. It meant she thought I needed a bamboo cane applied to my backside.

  “Stubborn how?” The room joggled a bit as I leaned up, but at least it didn’t spin as it had before.

  “I’m too busy to explain at the moment.” Miss Stranje consulted a small clock she pulled out of her pocket. “You have slept through an entire day. Lady Pinswary is about to descend upon this afternoon.” She slipped the timepiece back into her pocket, smoothed down her skirt and turned just as Sera and Jane rushed into the room.

  “She’s awake.” Sera hurried to the bed and stared at me.

  “I overheard the maids say she would never recover.” Jane focused on our headmistress for answers.

  “Servants tend to exaggerate. See for yourselves. She’s doing quite well.”

  Miss Stranje adopted a more businesslike manner. “At any rate, she’ll have to do. We’ve no time to waste. Lady Daneska and her aunt will arrive all too soon, and since one of the primary purposes of her visit is to scrutinize our new student, we must set our minds to the task of making her appear presentable.”